Lou Reed quotes - page 4

Sound is more than just noise. Ordered sound is music. My life is music. (Lou Reed)

The music is all. People should die for it. People are dying for everything else, so why not the music?

Lou Reed

I wouldn't want to hear Beethoven without beautiful bass, the cellos, the tuba. It's very important. Hip-hop has thunderous bass. And so does Beethoven. If you don't have the bass, it's like being amputated. It's like you have no legs.

Lou Reed

I can create a vibe without saying anything, just by being in the room.

Lou Reed

Raymond Chandler managed to write about L.A. his whole career. Should I keep going writing about New York? Is that what I should be doing? Songwriting doesn't work that way.

Lou Reed

I don't like the word rock opera, but I'm trying to write on that level that's reserved for plays still, or novels.

Lou Reed

I don't know what goes on in the crowd. I've had them show up and throw beer cans at me. I caused riots in most of the major cities.

Lou Reed

I can't do anything I want to. I mean, I can't have my own TV show. I can't have my own movie. But within my little world, nobody tells me what to put on the albums.

Lou Reed

I've become completely well adjusted to being a cult figure.

Lou Reed

I don't think anybody is anybody else's moral compass. Maybe listening to my music is not the best idea if you live a very constricted life. Or maybe it is.

Lou Reed

I'm in this business for too long to be halfhearted about anything. (Lou Reed)

I'll tell ya, I'm a genuinely nice guy. I really am. A real nice guy. But I think I'm temperamental.

Lou Reed

I don't mind a repetitive chorus; I mind repetitive verse. I mean, it's the same amount of space. Why would you have only three diamonds if you can have six?

Lou Reed

You're a musician: You play. That's what you do.

Lou Reed

I wanted to be an actor. That was my real goal. But I wasn't any good at it, so I wrote my own material and acted through that. That's my idea of fun. I get to be all these things in the songs.

Lou Reed

I have no control over the audience. I have no idea what they think. My heart's pure. I can't do anything. I really can't do anything. I don't know what goes on in the crowd.

Lou Reed

Meditation doesn't have to be complicated. What I do is about as simple as you can get. You could just count the beads, one, two, three, with your eyes closed or open, whatever makes you happy.

Lou Reed

People think that I work out but it's all t'ai chi.

Lou Reed

When I was in college, I had a jazz radio show. I called it 'Excursion on a Wobbly Rail,' after a Cecil Taylor song. I used to run around the Village following Ornette Coleman wherever he played.

Lou Reed

I am very emotionally affected by sound. Sounds are the inexplicable... There is a sound you hear in your head, it's your nerves, or your blood running.

Lou Reed

This room cost 2,000 dollars a month
You can believe it man it's true
Somewhere a landlord's laughing till he wets his pants
No one here dreams of being a doctor or a lawyer or anything
They dream of dealing on the dirty boulevard
Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I'll piss on 'em
That's what the Statue of Bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, let's club 'em to death
And get it over with and just dump 'em on the boulevard. (Lou Reed)

The Velvet Underground - Sweet Jane (youtube)

Lou Reed

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Lou Reed

Lou Reed - Image

Photo: Man Alive!, CC BY 2.0

Occupation: American Musician
Born: March 2, 1942
Died: October 27, 2013
Quotes count: 97
Wikipedia: Lou Reed

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